Dealing with Disaster: A Brief Guide to Emergency Preparedness

As a resident living fairly close to the Gulf Coast, I'm familiar with evacuating for a hurricane. There's no way around it — evacuating for a natural disaster is a pain. But, there are things you do to make the process less stressful. Here's a short list of the things I consider when evacuating.

The most important thing is to have a plan.

Where are you going to go?
My wife's job requires her to be back to work as soon as the storm blows through, which makes it tricky for us to evacuate &madsh; we can't go too far away. Our evacuation route is decided based on where we think the storm is going to go. For instance, when Hurricane Gustav came in well to our east, we headed west to my sister-in-law's house. When Hurricane Ike came in to our southwest, we headed north.

During an emergency, your local government will have an evacuation route that they want everyone to follow, but if you leave early enough you can go pretty much wherever you want to go.

The most economical way to evacuate is to stay with friends or family. This is the best way to go because it's hard to find an empty hotel when everyone else is evacuating. Just be sure you're a good guest. Don't overstay your welcome. If you don't have friends or relatives that you can stay with and you don't have money for a hotel, consider a shelter.

What are you going to pack?
For the most part you need to pack like you're taking a vacation. If you need to evacuate for a natural disaster or other emergency, consider the following:

Clothes and toiletries. Be prepared to be away from home for at least a week — more likely two.

Important papers. I use one of those portable filing boxes to store our most important papers (insurance information, social security cards, birth certificates, employee benefits information, etc.). (Some of these documents may be stored in a safe deposit box.)

Pets. Don't forget Fluffy. Be sure and take a bottle of water and some pet food. Also, if you have an outside pet, you might want to give a good scrubbing before you load it into the car. I don't like traveling with a dirty, smelly dog. Washing the dog is my kids' job.

Food and water. There's no need to go overboard but it is a good idea to pack some bottled water and maybe a few canned goods.

Computer. This is easy if you own a laptop. It's important to be able to go online to check in with your local news station and newspaper for important information.

Road atlas. Never leave home without one.

Money. It's a good idea to have some cash on hand. I usually take $300, which isn't a lot but is better than nothing.

Phone numbers to your neighbors. I have the cell phone numbers of most of my neighbors so that we can check in with each other to get status reports. One of my neighbors called me to tell me when our power was back on.

Finally, be sure and check on your older neighbors. Are they evacuating? If you have room, take them with you.

What are you going to do with the things you leave behind?
As important as the things you take with you is what you leave behind. Proper preparations can save hassle when you return.

Board up the house. For the first time ever, I boarded up some of the windows of my house. I never did this before because I thought it was too expensive to do. This year I bought six sheet of 1/2-inch plywood and one bag of clips and spent over $114. I then spent an afternoon cutting the pieces to fit my windows and marked each one for storage. When I boarded up for Ike, it only took me a few minutes to secure the boards. [J.D.'s note: Not every disaster requires boarding up, of course.]

Take an inventory of your stuff. My wife went room-by-room and took pictures of everything we owned. Chances are good that you won't need to use these pictures but you never know. I also have an itemized list of my CD collection.

Unplug all your appliances and electronics. I do leave my answering machine plugged in so that I can check in to see if I have power (if the answering machine doesn't pick up, I don't have power).

Pick up loose items in the yard and empty out the shed. One of the biggest problems with hurricanes, tornadoes, and other wind storms is all the debris flying through the air. (And in the case of flooding, there's plenty of debris in the water.) You can do your part by moving all your patio furniture other loose items into your garage. This is a great job for the kids. Don't forget that portable basketball goal.

EMPTY THE REFRIGERATOR! For some crazy reason, we didn't empty our refrigerators for Hurricane Rita. BIG MISTAKE! By the time we got to come back to check out our house, our power had been off a week. I can't tell you how bad the smell was!

Lock the house. I usually lock the garage doors and unplug the garage door openers.

A little preparation before the disaster can save a lot of headache later.

What about AFTER the emergency?
This is a whole topic by itself but I will say that if your area is hit by a hurricane, tornado, or flood, it could be weeks before you get back power and drinkable water. You have to decide if you're going to go back and rough it or if you are going to stay away.

Because I'm a big wimp, I always opt to stay away. I don't have a generator and am not really interested in buying one. I realize that not everyone will have the option to stay away if their job requires them to be back as soon as possible.

J.D.'s note: Kris and I don't have any sort of emergency preparedness plan. Oregon isn't subject to many disasters, but we do have the occasional flood or earthquake. JLP's experience is a reminder that advance preparation beats future regret.

Like What You've Read?

Join 23,211 subscribers who receive the weekly GRS Insider email newsletterfeaturing the best of the blog – and beyond. No spam. (Never.) Unsubscribe at any time.

There are 34 reader responses to "Dealing with Disaster: A Brief Guide to Emergency Preparedness".

deepalisays

There is some good stuff in here, but I think you need to make it clear that this is a plan for evacuation in the face of a hurricane (or other forecasted/predicted weather pattern). It’s also only a plan if you plan to leave well before any sort of “formal” evacuation.
Also, you forgot to include medications.

As someone with training in preparedness, mitigation, and response, I can tell you this isn’t any good for any other type of emergency (particularly the unexpected kind) except in the sense that it makes you think. In fact, evacuation is sometimes the worst thing you can do.

But I especially like the mention of checking on the neighbors. Great idea.

Thanks for the great post! We have created a plan that includes my son as well. We have practiced various routes out of the house in case of emergency, and he knows where to go to meet us. We are considering getting him one of those cell phones that only calls home and my cell phone so that if we are separated when something happens, he can get a hold of us.

I also like the idea of having cash. In a big emergency, the electronic systems that offer access to banks may be down.

Also a good idea to have the bottled water and batteries on hand, and plywood if applicable, rather than joining the last-minute rush to the stores. And, as my grandfather used to say, the car runs just as good off the top half of the tank.

The one thing on that list that I think is most important is the $300 cash, ideally in a mix of bills.

Last winter, half our town was without power (250,000+ people) for over a week. We were lucky that my in-laws had power but we only had about $20 in cash lying around the house. If we had needed to buy something from a store without power, we’d be sunk. No ATM or credit card.

Ever since then, I’ve kept a smalls stash of cash for just such an emergency.

I’m also a big believer in keeping some cash at home. I think it was Trent who advised spreading it out in a couple different spots around the house–smart.

Great post, JLP, as this is something we should all take to heart. Even if we don’t live in areas prone to natural disasters, we live in a time when other types of disasters could hit anywhere and as J.D. says, better to be prepared.

Don’t you need to turn off stuff in the fuse box? Turn off the gas? Stuff I have only read about, and I think some of them were in that list of 100 of Popular Mechanics. And a radio, the kind with the wind up, in case of a tornado or something, and everything is pretty much knocked out. Somehow they work. The Red Cross does one of these trainings. I don’t remember it all, but like most, I took the handouts so I could refer back to them later, should I need them.

I live about 8 miles from Three Mile Island. Twice a year they send out a large pamphlet that has much of this information on it. It even has safe points where we are to go depending on where we live (co-incidentally mine is in my hometown).

There are certain radio stations we are supposed to tune to and everything.

One thing that would be worthy of consideration would be to get certified as an amateur radio operator and add a handheld radio along with spare batteries and a charger that will plug into your car to the list.

Getting licensed is easy – your local library system should have a copy of “Now you’re Talking” or you can buy your own (or borrow one from your local radio club). Once you’ve studied the book the test is easy to pass (all multiple choice, no morse code needed).

You can pick up a used radio on eBay for only a hundred dollars or so and then you’ve got communication even when the power is out and the cell towers aren’t working.

JD, with all of the financial crisis–and the cutting of rates today by major banks–can you provide some of your younger readers thoughts about what to do with student loan debt? Newly-consolidated loans are locked at 6.8%, which is pretty hefty. Paying off early isn’t necessarily the best option, since credit is going to be tougher to come by and some of us want to own homes eventually. Are there good “consolidators”–either the term of art or a less regulated loan buyer–that will take these loans at a lower rate, at least for people with great credit and no real risk of default?

Hurricanes seem to be the disaster du jour of late – as they should be. But remember other disasters can happen just about anywhere. I’m a NC native so I know a thing or two about hurricanes. But for the past decade I’ve lived in Memphis and all we worry about during hurricane season is flash flooded and perhaps being overwhelmed by evacuees for a few days.

But we did have a freak windstorm (locally dubbed Hurricane Elvis cause it happened a week before Elvis week here in Memphis) with sustained winds over 100mph a few years back that knocked out power to most of the city for 2 weeks. And apparently back in 93 there was an ice storm that knocked out power for close to 10 days here (we had the same winter storm in NC, too). Of course in both instances there were problems with water, downed trees, transportation, etc.

My point is don’t assume that where you live you are free of hurricanes or other disasters. That windstorm, Hurrican Elvis, came out of nowhere and many of the older Memphians I talked to had never experienced something like that. So always have some degree of preparedness for the unexpected. You won’t regret it.

In all the real hurricanes I’ve been through (mainly Hugo), the winter storm of 93 (which was bad in NC, too) and the Memphis windstorm known as Hurricane Elvis there were really two things I needed most – a full tank of gas in my car and several hundred dollars cash (preferable in 1s, 5s, and 10s). To me those were the most necessary of all my provisions.

Great points!! I especially like list #2. However, taking inventory of what you have can and should be done when there’s no emergency looming. (and then make a backup of it and store it outside of the house. outside of your town is even better!)

I think this is a fantastic resource! I want to thank you for posting it. The only real issue I see is that it is so targeted towards disasters for which you CAN evacuate…for those of us in earthquake-prone areas (California, Puget Sound, etc.), you won’t know you’re having the disaster until, well, you’re having it.

Urgently important notes to consider for those of us in earthquake zones:

1. Know where the gas shutoff valve is in your house and TURN IT OFF if you smell gas.

2. Have an out-of-state relative/friend that your family members can contact to check in. Local lines will absolutely be down (if not because of fallen poles, then because EVERYBODY is calling at once) and long-distance lines are more likely to be open than local ones. The firefighter who led our work’s disaster-preparedness training last week also said that text messages are much more likely to get through than cellphone calls after an earthquake.

3. Keep emergency supplies at work AND in your car. If you’re a woman who wears high heels, keep a pair of comfortable tennis shoes in that work bag, because if you DO have to stay at work for that projected 3+ days, you will NOT want to be doing it in high heels.

If you’d like, I can send you the whole list of supplies that they gave me in the preparedness training – it’s a fantastic checklist, includes things even I never thought of, even having grown up in earthquake areas, and you could post it for your readers.

I think more people need to start thinking about emergency evacuation/preparedness plans. Even if they don’t live in hurricane, earthquake, or tornado prone areas, disasters can happen. Floods, fires, windstorms, major snow storms, lightening, and the like, can strike nearly anywhere and leave people without power, phone, and water, often for days or even weeks on end.

Other things to consider:

Dogatemyfinances mentioned medication. Absolutely.

Flashlight and extra batteries, in the car and house, in case you need to evacuate at night.

Living in a flood prone area, and have been through several small ones, and one huge one, I have to throw in rubber boots.

Insurance. If you do live in areas that have severe earthquakes, floods, etc. protect yourself! It probably doesn’t cost as much as you think it does!

If you do stay at home during the disaster, make sure you have potable water and a couple weeks supply of food. For cooking purposes, don’t use propane or natural gas portable stoves inside your home without adequate ventilation. Carbon monoxide kills!

JD, don’t you live in the shadow of some active volcanoes? Growing up in Seattle, I remember two things from school: tsunami drills, and volcano drills.

I think, no matter where we live, we perceive it to be safe, because nothing has ever happened in our lifetime. But in the big scheme of things, our lives are pretty short.

I had this same discussion with someone from Maine recently. He claimed his area was immune to any kind of disaster and he needed no plan. Although he lived at the sea shore, he had never seen a tsunami, therefore one could never happen. I’ve got one name for him: Cumbre Vieja…..

I just find, as a species, that our perceptions of risk can be so skewed. Sorry to run on, I just find this subject completely fascinating.

Mikey, if Hood blew Portland wouldn’t be in great shape but it would certainly be nothing compared to the Toutle River area in 1980 or surrounding areas to Mt Rainier. I think we’re farther from Hood than Seattlites are from Rainier. Also, don’t forget that serious volcanic activity (i.e. St Helens) has several weeks of warning. The only people left surrounding Mt St Helens were the ones that refused to evacuate, Like Truman.

I have an huge fear of The Big One hitting when I’m on the wrong side of the river or while I’m crossing it. The low bridges don’t scare me as much, I’m pretty sure I’d survive a fall, but the high ones (Marquam, Sellwood) scare the bejesus out of me.

JD, I don’t know what part of town you’re in except by little clues in your posts, how was your area affected in the 96 floods? I remember a lot of Milwaukie had pretty severe damage.

Instead of throwing out all the food in your fridge before a storm even makes landfall, seal everything up in heavy duty garbage bags (the kind used for lawn debris or contractor bags). This way, if the storm moves and you don’t lose power, or if you only lose power for a short period of time, you won’t have thrown away food. If you do get hit and power’s out for several days, then you just throw the bags away. It will still smell, but since you’re just tossing a few bags, it won’t take nearly as long as cleaning out the entire fridge. The bags will also prevent your fridge from being damaged if food does start to melt/decompose.

@pdxgirl, I was 300+ miles from St. Helens (in Pullman), yet we had so much ash that they declared an emergency and closed the University. Your comment actually illustrates my point about our perception of risk. How much distance from a volcano IS enough? Is it safe to live by the sea? We base our feeling of security on our experiences, but I think we have all seen over the past few years that as a species that is not working out very well for us.

Anyway,I wish you the best and hope you (and my brother in Tigard) have a long and boring life. ;)

It seems like a bunch of common sense, but I assume that in the heat of the moment amidst all of the panic and rush, simple things are overlooked. This is a great list to print off and go over if you’re one whose subject to evacuations.

I remember the earthquake we had back in ’89, which, seeing as I live near San Francisco, is still the most likely type of disaster that we’d have. Almost none of this advice applies. It’s all sort of hurricane-specific.

Unless your house actually falls down in an earthquake, which is exceedingly unlikely, you really don’t have to do much that’s special. You don’t actually have to go anywhere, so you don’t need to worry about clothes, important papers, pets, your computer, a road atlas, neighbors phone numbers, etc…

Basically what happened in ’89 was we lost power for three days. This meant we went to bed early and ate dry food. having a couple gallons of water and a few hundred dollars in cash can’t hurt, but going much beyond that seems like paranoia more than anything. I don’t need a ham radio or a hunting rifle. I mean, back in the ’89 earthquake, my dad had both of those. They didn’t provide us with any special information or make the power come back on any faster. But my dad was able to tell us “Joe on the radio said he barely felt the earthquake in Turlock”, or whatever, which was entertaining I guess, but not important.

The point is, everyone could be subject to evacuation for a variety of reasons. Some of those are natural events that are predictable based on where you live, like hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc. and pretty well every part of the country is at risk of one or another of those. But there are also ones that could happen anywhere, with little or no warning like a huge fire, or a chemical plant explosion, a plane crash in a residential area, etc. In JD’s case, sitting on the Ring of Fire doesn’t just mean volcanic eruption. Earthquakes are always a possibility as well and there’s no way to know when “The Big One” might hit.

You should always be prepared to manage either at home or in an evacuation for a minimum of 72 hours without power and preferably for at least a week.

Food (that needs little or no preparation), bottled water, a manual can opener, flashlights, some cash, a crank operated radio, blankets, pet food, baby stuff appropriate for your child (i.e. diapers and wipes, possibly formula and baby food), medications, feminine sanitary products and copies of all your important paperwork in a waterproof and preferably fireproof case are pretty much the minimum. Your computer or at an absolute minimum a current backup of all your files is also really good (especially for us bloggers who would be lost without our laptops!). A spare pair of glasses, even if you usually wear contacts.

Have most of these things set aside in a duffle bag in an accessible place so you can grab it and run if necessary. You do not want to be looking for any of these things if an official comes to your door in the middle of the night and says you have to get out right now.

Another good idea is to keep a mini version in your car, especially in winter in cold climates. In this case, include sand or kitty litter (for traction), chains, a blanket, gloves, a small shovel and traffic flares as well as food & water. A high viz vest is good too in case you have trouble at night.

Funny someone in Maine would think that. He should be more prepared. In New England we can expirence a little bit of everything. I have even heard there is a major fault line here and the buildings are not designed for the big one. I keep my hiking equipment ready to go just incase. You never know what may happen without notice.

Another useful item is a cell phone. Towers can be fixed faster than wires and first responders often want them repaired quickly for their communications.

If it’s possible, share your food with your neighbors; this of course will depend on many things including the disaster type, length of planning time available, etc. Granted, food may be the last thing on your mind in a disaster but in the case of hurricanes, there is typically a pretty good size lead time to get out and it’s easy enough to add this to the list. When I evacuated for Hurricane Ike in September, I gave the contents of my freezer to my neighbors who rode the storm out (they had a massive cooler and got ice). I took along with me some perishables like eggs, cheese, milk and fruit (I’m lucky enough to have family with an RV that’s used for evacs). Left behind items that I had already opened (random things–didn’t want to give already used items to neighbors). When I got back, the fridge/freezer did stink but at least it was easily remedied with a half/half solution of vinegar and water (and then leaving the fridge/freezers door stand open until the power came back on—plates of baking soda placed inside). Much better than coming back to an appliance full of rotting meat and poultry! Frugal note: this whole ordeal really made me realize how much extraneous stuff I had in my freezer that I forgot I had even purchased and made me re-evaluate how much I really need. I have about half the stuff I did before the storm and no frozen food (I know this is not very efficient–I did put a gallon jug full of water in there and am going to add a couple more).

If this woman had a duffle with a couple pairs of pants and clean socks/undies in her hall closet she’d have a small amount of comfort at the moment. I have no idea if she did or didn’t, but if she didn’t everything she owned is probably destroyed. Sure she could go out and buy what she needs, but who wants to deal with that when house just slid down a hill?

So, does anyone have evacuation advice for those of us without cars? We generally rent one when we need one– but I imagine that in the event of an evacuation there would be a sudden shortage of rentals, since EVERYONE who doesn’t own a car would want to rent one all at once.

If an evacuation becomes necessary, how do we avoid going down with the ship?

I can relate big time as we were impacted by a hurricane recently. We left the house and didn’t return for quite some time. Fortunately, we only lost a few things from the fridge when it was all over. It amazed me how many people rode it out despite warnings to the contrary.

I don’t know what that guy from Maine is talking about. Sounds like a flatlander to me!

I live in Northern New England where our big disasters are ice storms and blizzards and the rare rogue hurricane. When something like that happens – the best and only option is usually to stay put. I’m a hiker and climber, so when we lose power for a week or two, I just bring the gear upstairs and we all camp out in the living room, snug as bugs in a rug. Having a basement stocked with non-perishables, spare fuel, and plenty of warm camping gear makes the whole experience as fun as it can be.

My home was built in the 70s during the energy crisis, so we have a wood stove as a backup heating system which helps a lot in these kinds of emergencies.

Great article! Like JD I to live in Oregon, and there just aren’t many natural disasters around. In my How to Rich blog I always talk about financial planning in case of emergencies, but this article is an important reminder that things can change quickly. Whose really going to be thinking about money when a hurricane is knocking at your door?

I know this is posting way late, but I live on the Gulf Coast (MS, where Katrina actually hit), and just wanted to add my $.02. Start stocking up on canned / emergency foods in March as well as start using up the perishables in your freezer. In September, you can start working on using up your canned goods and replacing your freezer stock. Try not to keep much more than 6 months’ worth of either, since the food needs to be rotated anyhow. Always try to keep your yard policed and don’t let junk accrue, that way, come time for a bad storm, there won’t be so much to do. And if you have the woodworking skills, replace your fake decorative shutters with real, functioning wood shutters. I’ve seen a few people use them, and it’s great to see them button up their house in under 15 minutes. Try to keep your vehicles topped with fuel most of the time – I refill when I get down a quarter of a tank.

We stay put (we invested in a storm cellar since we’re 130ft above sea level), but I try to keep a decent pantry at all times anyhow. I hate rushing to the store with all the attendant craziness when a storm is predicted to hit our area.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

My name is J.D. Roth. I started Get Rich Slowly in 2006 to document my personal journey as I dug out of debt. Then I shared while I learned to save and invest. Twelve years later, I've managed to reach early retirement! I'm here to help you master your money — and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you get rich slowly. Read more.

General Disclaimer: Get Rich Slowly is an independent website managed by J.D. Roth, who is not a trained financial expert. His knowledge comes from the school of hard knocks. He does his best to provide accurate, useful info, but makes no guarantee that all readers will achieve the same level of success. If you have questions, consult a trained professional.

Advertising Disclosure: Some offers on this page may promote affiliates, which means GRS earns a commission if you purchase products or services through the links provided. All opinions expressed here are the author's and not of any other entity. The content at Get Rich Slowly has not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by any entity mentioned at the site. For additional information, please review our full advertising disclosure.